Both sides are bad
Yep. Just because one side is bad, it doesn’t mean the other is any good.
Cryptocurrency is still dependent of a pyramid scheme and criminals-enabling. Credit card companies are still a private owned government branch with no concern for human rights and criminals-enabling.
I learned recently FedNow is a payment processor ran by the Federal Reserve, with a fee of $0.043 per transaction. Making it much, much cheaper than every other payment processor out there.
It just launched two years ago; I’m wondering if this might become more of a thing moving forward for digital payments.
Say that any louder and it’ll be DOGEd overnight.
Nice but floundered. Call me when consumers and small businesses can use it.
It’s also a heck of a lot quicker to process, (effectively instant) and works even on holidays.
And of course, banks like Bank of America, Capital One, and tons of other financial institutions simply refuse to use it, because that would mean spending money on changing their infrastructure, and making it more convenient for people to also use accounts outside of theirs.
Seriously, it’s been ages, and they’ve refused to use it at all, even though it’s purely a financial and technical upside for every user once it’s implemented.
You pay fees for transactions?
Every digital payment has transaction fees, yes.
Credit card transaction fees for vendors are generally 1-3%, for example.
Every digital payment has transaction fees, yes.
If you say so.
Which digital payment doesn’t have transaction fees?
Credit cards (vendor side), debit cards (vendor side), and crypto (consumer side) all have transaction fees. Paypal, venmo, etc all make their money from (vendor side) transaction fees as well. Is there a different type of digital payment you are using that doesn’t have transaction fees?
Criminals-enabling is what they call VPNs, E2EE encrypted communication etc.
more and more good people are being called criminals
Cryptocurrency is still dependent of a pyramid scheme and criminals-enabling.
As we all know, Visa and MasterCard have never been used by criminals. As soon as a criminal touches a card, the card turns into ash.
Reading isn’t your strong suit, is it?
Yep, but cryptocurrency isn’t dictating what you can spend with it…yet at least. So if no government does anything to help us, then we must adopt a cryptocurrencies like Monero to fight back against censorship as nothing more than a private citizen.
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This. Corporate shit weasels or supporting human trafficking.
“We should restrict the free use of oxygen because terrorists can breath it to sustain themselves.”
C’mon. Crypto has issues, but this ain’t one of them. Pandering to people’s fear is how fascist seize power for themselves and perpetuate the horrors we feared in the first place.
is the main problem with crypto who is on control? Bc it seems like ultra rich people. I have yet to see crypto become something people can do for themselves. You have to have the fastest gpu to solvw the puzzle first and get the coin, right? Maybe hierarchicalization is the problem.
Ugh, the “both sides” argument again… /s
Yeah, I’m going to buy my games with bitcoin now.
Oh shit, the fee is higher than the price of the game, can I use Litecoin ?
The current Bitcoin transaction fee is $0.67. Which means for a purchase larger than $34, Bitcoin is cheaper than the average credit card transaction fee.
I don’t have a credit card. If you pay per transaction, is there at least no monthly base fee?
There are are no other fees for holding crypto, you only pay when you move it from one place to another, those fees change depending on time of day/week as well. Though some services (like coincards) may take additional processing fees.
A credit card, in the US, has a transaction fee for the vendor, 1-3% of the purchase price, sometimes with a flat few cents fee on top.
The consumer has no transaction fee, but does pay interest (around 28% annually) if they don’t pay off the full balance every month (if they do pay it in full at the end of the month, there is no interest charge). Usually there will be a 1-2% cash back for the consumer as well.
Some credit cards also have an annual fee for the consumer. These generally have higher cash back rewards and higher vendor transaction fees than those that don’t.
Don’t forget secured cards, which require an upfront deposit, and cards with regular monthly or annual fees, simply for having them, regardless of whether you use them or not.
Thats the kind of credit cards you get offered if you are bad with credit cards (cough most Americans are cough thats kinda the whole business model cough), or, if someone steals your identity and you either don’t have enough time or money or otherwise can’t sufficiently prove to credit reporting agencies / banks that that is what happened.
Go to a credit union. Your local credit union will offer better rates and good limits with low fees compared to big banks. My first card at 18 was a secured card, $500 limit and a 4% interest if you didn’t pay off your card. After six months it went to am unsecured ans $1500 limit. All with no fees.
Yeah, I know it can be hit or miss depending on your location, but I have had similarly good experiences with my local credit union… you just prove to them in a more old fashioned way that you’re responsible, and they’ll often be flexible with you in ways that banks aren’t.
Thanks.
The merchant pays the fee. With cryptocurrencies, the consumer pays the fee. Some sites offer a discount for paying with cryptocurrency as a result. For example, most precious metals dealers who accept Bitcoin offer a 3% discount for using it.
I only buy games at $30 or cheaper. So that won’t work for me 🤷♂️
The current Bitcoin transaction fee is $0.67.
For a ~60 minute confirmation target. It’s $0.77 for a 20 minute confirmation target right now. The daily average is $1.03.
And lets not forget that the only reason the price is so low now is because people aren’t competing much for those transactions. If people actually used bitcoin to buy games the transaction fee would increase significantly.
You only have to wait one hour for the transaction to be confirmed. It also takes a shit load of energy and is extremely inefficient compared to credit card payment processors. Woohoo!
Cumrocket is the way!
Thanks for the tip, I’m putting all my life savings into it then.
This exists too ::: spoiler spoiler https://coinstats.app/coins/8fZL148nnC168RAVCZh4PkjvMZmxMEfMLDhoziWVPnqf_solana/ :::
Bitcoin is pretty old, newer cryptocurrencies are more efficient.
I’m glad we’re spending the equivalent of a couple dozen million households of electricity on it
Meanwhile the US military’s energy budget eclipses global crypto mining essentially to maintain petrodollar dominance and American residents pay for it.
You’re so right, environmental impact has not been assessed by any cryptocurrency ever made. Literally zilch. None. Nada.
? And that makes bitcoins waste disapear?
No, and I never stated that. I just think it’s stupid to group all of crypto as an environmentally unsustainable technology. Following your logic, switching to electric cars isn’t worth it because the 100 years of petroleum pollution won’t disappear.
Let’s not ask how much power Visa and MasterCard use for their global monopoly.
Literally orders of magnitude less? Are you not familiar with how proof of work crypto operates? Being energy inefficient is the whole point.
Yeah I’m using this cool new Lightning cryptocurrency, check it out.
Lightning network exists too
Litecoin is cool.
the fee might be higher at some points but you’re just blabbering. check mempool.space and actually look at what fees are at rn + consider that there are many chains and l2s that can be used for payment. B)
A dollar in fees is a dollar more than with fiat for the person paying. That and do you expect enough normal people to learn about L2s and chains to make it worthwhile for Valve or whoever to implement support for anything besides the main chains of 2-3 major cryptos and stablecoins on ethereum main?
A dollar in fees is a dollar more than with fiat for the person paying.
Average credit card transaction fee is ~2%. So a dollar of Bitcoin fees makes Bitcoin cheaper for any purchase over $50.
The transaction fee is not paid by the consumer (directly), and lord knows sellers are not going to lower prices based on payment method.
It depends, I have shopped at places where they will discount up to 15% by paying cash.
Yeah, there are a bunch of places around me that offer cash discounts which I make solid use of. Lets them lower prices for you as you aren’t forcing a credit card transaction fee onto them.
sellers are not going to lower prices based on payment method
Mullvad actually does this for their VPN service, which I think is great. For a VPN company that doesn’t want to store identifiers about you, taking crypto makes sense because that also doesn’t necessarily have identifiers about you attached that they could read or be required to store, unlike a card that requires your name, address, and card number.
Other than that though, no larger companies are going to do anything of the sort, let alone be likely to even implement it as a payment method to begin with. Tons of additional technical complexity for little to no benefit.
I hope the EU to come up with their own payment process to compete against and be a mainstream alternative to the US based ones.
Sadly, this is probably true. Unless they’re trying to steer customers away from more troublesome payment providers.
People who use credit cards don’t pay the transaction fee. If the product is priced at 10 Stanly nickle they only play 10 Stanley nickle. Lot of credit cards also offer cash back so people might get 1-5% back depending on what the category for the month is.
When it comes to transaction fees you are going to have to sell the vender on it than the consumer since they are the one paying.
Oh you’re definitely paying the credit card fee too, but since it’s the vendor who gets billed it’s just priced into the product. That’s why the product costs 10 Stanly nickle instead of 9 Stanly nickle.
Pay same in cash or credit. Priced in or not what the company asks for is what the consumer pays, so point being these crypto transaction arguments make no difference when it comes to fees. Like you said end retail price is already priced in.
Company wants 10 Stanley nickles consumer is charged 10 Stanley nickles regardless of payment method.
Pay same in cash or credit.
Depends on the vendor. There are a bunch of places around me that offer cash discounts, which I make solid use of. Lets them lower prices for you as you aren’t forcing a credit card transaction fee onto them.
Yeah good point, they’re not discounting the credit increase for the crypto buyers. That might even be against their credit processor contract.
But it’s not variable so the seller prices it in. Switch to Bitcoin and you have to pay it while prices likely stay the same. Also lately most of my games have been under 30 EUR tbh
yes I expect l2s to catch on in different ways and yes I hope that a lot of places like steam or whatever properly implement at least bitpay or something similar in house.
I mean either you care enough about payment processor censorship to go around them or you don’t. If the extra dollar isn’t worth it to you then that is what it is.
Nobody is going to rush to implement a payment system where the fees can change 5x hour to hour because that’s just customer dissatisfaction waiting to happen.
That’s actually one of the matured parts of the crypto ecosystem that has existed for years already, as it was one of the most immediate needs. Last I checked Stripe and Bitpay were the most popular options for vendors.
Lmao, crypto tech bros coming out of the woodwork trying to get popularity for their bag holder’s game…
Also pretending that shit hasn’t been bought up by wall street
What? They have like 5%. You should revisit your stance
Crypto remains a pyramid scheme masquerading as a resistance against tyranny
Ironically you know what ACTUALLY protects from powergrabs by payment processors? A fully centralised, government backed form of digital cash that is fully equivalent to paper money.
Ask a Brazilian about pix. Super low fees (often feeling non existant). And transactions can’t be invalidated on the whims of a corporate board. For something to not be buyable by pix it has to be illegal, thus having to go through every layer of checks and balances a democracy has.
The problem with visa and their ilk is that finance has been privatised. Too much power in the hands of corporations that have deftly dodged regulation that would keep them neutral and honest. Thinking privatising things further and turning everyone into a fully unregulated petty digital landlord is gonna solve anything rather than make it worse is foolhardy.
Benefits of centralization: Someone can counteract harmful interactions.
Drawbacks of centralization: Someone can decide legitimate interactions are harmful.
It does suck when the “harmful interaction management system” goes haywire. But I’m not sure it sucks enough that I’d rather simply not have one.
I used to be one of the people firmly on the “someone can decide legitimate interactions are harmful, thus they should not ever exist” side of the argument, and I think this is certainly a good way of putting it.
For a lot of people heavily into crypto, they see the drawbacks of the existing system, but instead of pushing for reform and legal changes, they try technological abolition of the entire mechanism altogether, without then realizing the tradeoffs that brings (e.g. how a lot of people will go “it’s instant! Sellers don’t have to worry about chargebacks! Nobody can take away your money from you!” yet don’t think about how that also means a scammer taking your money is a permanent loss you can never reverse. (or if they do think about it, will argue that risk can be reduced to a point it is less harmful than the alternative, centralized companies)
I don’t deny crypto can be useful sometimes, or even be more beneficial when the centralized companies do eventually do something bad and people need an alternative payment mechanism, but I think a lot of people into crypto overestimate how beneficial it truly is compared to the tradeoffs.
About the “nobody can take your money” part.
Etherium Classic exists because somebody hacked an extremely valuable wallet and funneled 13% of all eth into their wallet. The people who control the mining pools, (rich assholes) wanted that transaction reversed, so they hard forked. Classic is the main fork that didn’t reverse that transaction. It’s much less popular, despite being run by people who are demonstrably more principled.
Paraphrased from Dan Olson’s video “line goes up” about crypto’s history and affect on the world. Spoiler: it’s a scam, and a tool for the wealthy to get even richer. Computing power can be bought with dollars.
Technically true, but chains nowadays aren’t really vulnerable to that same kind of attack just due to their sheer scale and diversification of controlling stakes compared to what they used to be, so I wouldn’t consider it a particularly relevant issue today.
The relevant part isn’t which mistake happened, but that the fact that no mistake can be reversed.
Fixing one mistake is great and all, but it’s still a method of accounting whose ledger — by design — cannot be revised.
Yeah it’s a personal level of comfort sort of thing. Some people value one side of the equation while some people value the other side. Strong case for vendors accepting both cards and crypto instead of just one.
Yeah. They do such a good job of stopping nazis and csam.
I trust completely in the central bank to fight fascism. It is necessary. The central bank fights for the laborer, not the capitalist. The central bank fights for freedom, not authoritarianism. The central bank ensures democracy, not an oligarchy. Without a central bank, our entire society would be doomed to fall to fascism. A centralized currency is a major facet between a free society and one with a corrupt dictator surrounded by crooked cronies where the wealthy have all the power and the common man is reduced to crumbs.
The central bank is divine and good.
“someone can decide you have zero dollars”
free speech until your bank account goes away
Regulation prevents that. You can’t regulate decentralized currencies, meaning you have zero protection 100% of the time.
Ah, the regulations that judges can just deem not legal? You do understand that checks and balances, right now, are pretty much gone? I’m not for a decentralized currency, I am just against irrationally worshiping centralization with zero concerns. Regulation capitalism is putting a band aid over a gaping wound, the real cure is socialism and socialism isn’t regulations, it’s a complete and total change of the system. If you think regulation is how we achieve socialism, you are wrong. Money shouldn’t even exist, IMO, so I don’t really care for the ‘centralized’ argument of something I fundamentally don’t want to exist. Unless you can tell me how centralized banks are going to bring about socialism, I’m not sure what you’re arguing in favor of if not capitalism. I’m sure there are ways of achieving gift economies and the like without centralized authorities and the possibility of unchecked executive power.
yes, however the regulations will always have some corruption
Same for unregulated systems, only without transparency, limits or recourse
uhhh… so the logic here is that if regulation isn’t even an option then… what exactly? What’s better, wearing a helmet so your head doesn’t get broken in, but leave your arms and legs uncovered, or just not wearing any protection at all?
Communism. Start small, connect networks.
Nah man, you have to want fiat currency! Fiat currency is necessary, man! It’s the only way for a safe and civil society! You want a gift economy? Who the fuck wants to give away shit haha. If I have money, I can keep my community safe by blasting away people who want to take it. In a gift economy or any other kind of anti-capitalist economy people would be incentivized to care for one another, which is unrealistic. We just have to regulate the people who want to kill over their money in a way that they can only kill for their money in socially acceptable ways like through cops and the criminal justice system. People need to know that money is deadly but we don’t need to let them see the blood on the streets. As long as we get to say some people are criminals, people are happy that they got their money in a safe and legal way and followed all the regulations.
Also the trump admin did abolish finality of payments.
you can prevent getting scammed with crypto by using something like escrow
Oh honey…
Doesn’t protect against:
- Social engineering
- Contract code vulnerabilities
- Untrustworthy/Compromised controlling stakes in that escrow, whether they be people or autonomous systems
- False reversal claims made against the escrow
It has the same possible issues for your financial sovereignty as a regular, centralized financial institution, plus technical issues with the way the underlying infrastructure is built.
valid points. i see the problem with that
Yeah, but one is extra bad for our enviroment while being a scam.
That’s what i thought, too. I would never believed if someone telled me some years ago that there will be another scam (ai) that wastes even more power.
Just wait until somebody proposes an AI powered blockchain…
The ultimate techbro venn diagram.
💀. Thats darker than anything else.
Stop giving them ideas
I seriously thought your punchline was going to be the pacific garbage patch from all that extra consumption we’ve encouraged.
totally agree re bitcoin, and also am very sceptical of crypto as a mass-adopted currency in general
however there are plenty of networks that don’t use proof of work to validate their chains, and they aren’t bad for the environment to nearly the same degree
They are still very unstable and rely on some sort of consensus. It is flat out a bad design. It would be safer to pay with stocks.
consensus is basically what all modern databases rely on… it’s not unstable; it has properties that need to be well known and accounted for
The problem is using that for something world wide with no backing by anything material.
It is unstable by nature
i tend to agree for mass-adopted currency, but mass currency is only 1 use case for blockchain
things like bank to bank transfers (think a replacement to swift: with semi trusted entities like a big group of banks, the proof functions can be both extremely efficient and fast whilst remaining scalable and distributed so nobody has control… of course this would be a private network, but every bank involved can audit and sign off on transactions)
blockchain at its core is an immutable log between untrusted parties… it can be used to prove a particular thing happened at a particular point, in situations where people don’t even trust governments etc to maintain accurate records
it’s too big and cumbersome to be used by everyone in the world for payment, but it’s a good facilitator of some niche things that most people won’t have any idea about
the technology is solid; it’s just very limited, and the most “profitable” and marketable uses are also the most ill-suited
Why use them and not… normal fiat currency?
No bank or goverment can control it. It is the benefit of being able to send money to anyone around the world while maintaining ownership of your money as if it were cash in hand.
Banks or governments as opposed to who though? There’s a reason we usually want those publicly owned and regulated institutions to handle our transactions. Obviously, it depends what country you live in, and what currency you’re talking about. But I don’t think Bitcoin or any other cryptocurrency actually solves the problem it purports to.
Ideally, no one controls it. It’s just exists as a medium for exchange.
There are both good and bad points to currency have value that can be adjusted by gov’ts; crypto currency solves one set of problems, but has it’s own, inherent issues.
You’re not really selling it for me, which I guess is the point aye? 😂
What I imagine as ideal is an open-source and transparent bank and payment system that issues its own currency backed by ties to its investment portfolio that is properly regulated by its host country. i.e. you would use their currency to trade among others on the platform according to the percentage value of their portfolio that you own as measured by the currency to which you which to convert your holdings for a given purchase. You could select different tiers of risk if you’d like your “savings” to grow in value over time but experience potential dips or even loss of value if there is major market stability.
I am not an expert on such things, but this at least has real links to tangible asset worth, and isn’t based on the artificial scarcity of an increasingly unsolvable math problem.
this at least has real links to tangible asset worth,
Well, kind of. But the worth of those assets is largely due to perception, rather than real utility value. Like, real estate is stupidly expensive in many places, but it’s expensive because people believe that it’s expensive. When real estate bubble burst, you see the ‘worth’ of that real estate drop sharply. The utility value is having a place to sleep, but it’s often treated as an investment. So you would still see currency value fluctuations. Currency issue by gov’ts largely has worth because the gov’t says that it has worth; it’s not tied to anything. (BTW - tying currency to a tangible asset limits your ability to add currency when necessary. It will tend to lead to depreciation–the value of the currency rising–which is usually a bad thing.)
The other problem is that corporations and banks go bust; if they were issuing currency, that would mean all your money would instantly be worthless.
Anti-inflationary to keep cash in BTC as opposed to sitting in an account at a bank
Until some guy in LA hires a bunch of moonlighting police officers to steel your laptop
Yup, just like cash.
To an extent cryptos only value is it can be turned into currency.
That is exactly the problem. It has no real value as the entire thing is propped up by chaos. It could be worth a trillion dollars one day and then nothing the next.
And therefore no recourse if you are robbed, scammed, etc. Try going to your local, or even federal authorities and explain to them that you lost the digital equivalent of $10000 and they won’t do a thing.
You can opt in to an arbitrator before sending the money.
And that helps you how in the event of a theft?
It prevents the theft in the first place because they’d need to hack two parties instead of just one.
- You’re a criminal who wants to evade tracking by law enforcement
- You live in a country subject to sanctions and need to move a large sum of money transnationally
- You are the tinfoil-hat type who doesn’t trust Government-issued money for one of many real or imagined reasons
- You want to make digital purchases while staying relatively anonymous
- You’re a gambler who went all-in on crypto and are hoping it will increase in value later on
- You just think it’s more fun to pay with futuristic magic Internet money (yes, some people actually do it for this reason)
- You are a business in a (the) country whose laws legally require the acceptance of Bitcoin
- You’re not a criminal, but you fear the definition of ‘criminal’ might change in the future
- You want to get rich
i do think they hold some value for things like bank to bank, where each party is kiiiiind of untrusted and unrelated (not on a public chain - it’s just a private consensus between collaborating parties)
it also undeniably provides payment outside of standard card networks and the finance sector (people have been using crypto to buy drugs for decades now), so can be used to circumvent things like this mastercard/visa morality police garbage… i think in that, it’d be useful to have a strongish cryptocurrency somewhere at least to be able to provide uncensorable competition (the alternative to that being some global EU network that everyone accepted in the same manner)
but i think the value in blockchain in general is minimally about currency: that was just the first implementation… it’s a distributed, trustworthy log between untrusted individual entities. the benefits of that are honestly pretty niche, but i think it does solve some valuable problems… just most people should never even know that blockchain was involved
Fair points, cheers.
I am NOT a crypto fan, but not all cryptocurrencies are bad for the environment. Ethereum is proof of stake.
Over 52% of the bitcoin network is renewable energy and growing. Y’all need to update your info, damn
Yes, but that still means that the other half is fossil fuel.
Bitcoin mining’s distribution makes it difficult for researchers to identify the location of miners and electricity use. It is therefore difficult to translate energy consumption into carbon emissions. As of 2025, a non-peer-reviewed study by the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance (CCAF) estimated that bitcoin consumed 138 TWh (500 PJ) annually, representing 0.5% of the world’s electricity consumption and resulting in annual greenhouse gas emissions of 39.8 Mt CO2, representing 0.08% of global emissions and comparable to Slovakia’s emissions.
I think people should really reconsider using PoW cryptocurrencies. Ethereum was able to reduce their energy consumption by 99.95% by switching to PoS and it’s still doing fine. IMO Bitcoin is outdated technology that is just used as a pyramid scheme due to its name recognition.
Compared to our current system though? How much does the entire banking and credit card industry contribute to emissions for almost the same service? Bitcoin incentivises energy companies to mine BTC with excess energy.
The current systems used by VISA use significantly less energy compared to PoW cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin
Ethereum was able to cut their energy usage down drastically by moving away of PoW. Windmills and clean energy aren’t the solution, getting rid of PoW is. Why build more solar farms if you could just not use so much electricity?
I think I haven’t explained myself properly. I will admit it seems bitcoin uses more energy in this case. However, we’re comparing Bitcoins entire currency system with that of a processor of fiat. I’m on mobile right now but I would like to see that comparison for arguments sake, bitcoin ecosystem vs fiat ecosystem (including mining, storing and transport of gold)
Ah, moving the goal posts, aren’t we?
Did you know that gold has nothing to do with the fiat ecosystem? In fact, the whole point of the word fiat in fiat ecosystem means that it is not based on gold at all. And if you include gold in the equation because some people use fiat to buy or sell gold, then you need to include gold in the energy costs of bitcoin as well, since people also use bitcoin to buy/sell gold.
They’re not moving the goalposts.
How much does the entire banking and credit card industry contribute to emissions for almost the same service?
The current systems used by VISA
bitcoin ecosystem vs fiat ecosystem
Ah, moving the goal posts, aren’t we?
fiat ecosystem (including mining, storing and transport of gold)
Gathering / transporting valuables is not a part of the fiat ecosystem. The value of fiat currency does not depend on any underlying materials (like gold, silver, etc.) like the currencies before.
So does the fiat system then get added to Bitcoin? Since it’s only value is it can be exchanged for fiat currency.
BTC can be used like fiat so no?
Don’t engage with these ignorant assholes man, they are all in banking’s pocket. We are at war, you know that right? Who the hell would be this passionate about protecting a slimy, evil ass legacy network without any audibility, responsible for countless wars, death, usurping of democratic governments, literally the death of this planet via global warming…
Traditional banking supports and incentives genocide.
It supports and incentivizes oil.
It shut down nuclear power.
It limits renewable power.
It is the engine of our destruction.
Do not justify yourself to it. You are the correct one. Anyone who cannot see this will never see it now. Leave them on their path to die. They will go down with the ship. I feel for them, but it is too late now.
Don’t engage with these ignorant assholes man, they are all in banking’s pocket.
Shit you got me, you ruined our perfect psyop!
they are all in banking’s pocket.
The fastest way to render your point invalid.
Oof yeah I looked back and noticed I’m arguing on memes😵💫 it’s amazing we’re on the fediverse but they can’t see the parallels
BULLSHIT.
You aren’t computing the cost in blood, censorship, wasted time, the lives employed by these evil orgs wasting their lives scamming people, the loss of revenue from value-producing business, the waste of banking cards, and the COUNTLESS other energy-guzzling mechanisms involved.
Bitcoin eliminates ALL these problems. It is by far more efficient, it isn’t even close. Also, it isn’t a payment system like visa, what an ignorant ass comparison. It is literally a sovereign currency with publicly auditable minting & ledgers. It replaces MONEY. Payment processors are built on top of it.
Yea, even the shit visa and mastercard can switch to payment processing on top of Bitcoin. It would actually be beneficial. When they decline a transaction you just directly use the network instead.
Btw PoS is also bullshit, in a completely different and inferior class of crypto. It requires HUMAN CONSENT to enter the network. PoW requires COMPUTATIONAL CONSENT. PoW lets anyone into the network if they can follow the rules of minting. This is HUGE when talking about a freedom-preserving system.
Put more simply, PoS systems are aristocracy owning an apple orchard (you ask an authority if they are allowed to take an apple), PoW is like an apple orchard deep in the woods that anyone can take from (you just have to walk there). Understand the difference?
One OWNS THE ORCHARD. They will protect it from people they deem unauthorized. They demand people go through them for permission. It is no different than what we have now, abstracted further and digitized.
What a bunch of bullshit Bitcoin is not more efficient and gets less efficient the more coins get mined.
Yeah, somebody hasn’t refreshed their browser since 2010.
Btw PoS is also bullshit, in a completely different and inferior class of crypto. It requires HUMAN CONSENT to enter the network.
That is specific to delegated proof of stake, not PoS in general.
Proof of Stake = I have a stake in preserving this network, and I am rewarded by receiving an increased stake in the network.
You cannot organically enter a PoS network without having a stake in it. That requires acquiring the network’s token somehow. That means you must use a different token to purchase it, do work for someone who will pay you in it, or otherwise perform an operation organized by people in order to acquire the token to have a stake.
That’s what I mean by human consent.
I think what I’d suggest is that the entire global banking and credit card industry is likely to contribute more in total to our climate catastrophe, just due to the difference in scale between that and a relatively small and lesser-used alternative like Bitcoin.
I do see where you’re coming from for sure. I just think it’s worth noting where it is and where it’s going given it’s managed to grow to 52% in an anti bitcoin world. If bitcoin allows to be “legitimatised” I think those goals are achievable
Bitcoin well never be legitimized it is to volatile.
There is no excess energy though. They wouldn’t be making that energy if it wasn’t for Bitcoin.
I’ll see if I can link it but some companies do, I think specifically it has to do with renewable energies but don’t quote me on that
I think they’re referring to renewables that otherwise wouldn’t be cost effective.
Now those windfarm can be batch processing AI instead of BTC.
It should also be noted, that using more power isn’t fine just because it’s renewable. It’s still worse for the environment, and especially not until it’s 100%
The ASICS also produce e-waste, the electricity could have been used for other things, and the energy use puts more strain on the energy grid when that is already an issue in many countries.
Even at 100%, there’s still better things to do with electricity than Bitcoin. Like hydrogen and fuel production (for planes, ships, heavy industry).
I agree, but it’s still early days. I’ll keep pushing for a greener development of the network, too
You cryptoremoved have been saying it’s “early days” since 2009
It’s been 16 years. That bullshit don’t fly anymore.
It’s wasting useful energy, and you think that’s a good thing?
It’s wasting useful energy,
So is most of this thread…
Nope not what I’m saying
Isn’t this a right wing meme about centrists, but with the text changed?
The Bitcoin side wouldn’t catch you, because that interferes with the user’s choice to hit the ground.
Cash is King.
I’m in Germany and people believe this. I say, if I have my credit card stolen, I can stop the card with my bank app and be refunded for the purchases the thief made.
If they have their 500€ of cash stolen, that’s it. It’s gone. No amount of crying about how cash is king will bring it back.
You are only considering half the issue. If you manage to “aquire” 500 in cash…
So then don’t carry 500 in cash then. You only need enough cash in your wallet to cover the expenses you might encounter in a single day. And having cash on you doesn’t mean you can’t have cards too in case you need more money
So less king and more part of a council?
Yeah, something like that. Maybe cash should be the chair of the council
Paying in cash doesn’t cost extra, by card does
No it doesn’t. Shops pay transaction fees and pass that cost into all customers equally whether they’re paying cash or card.
Taking physical cash, counting it, loss of cash through error or malace, buying change, physically banking it (taking it themselves or using a cash collection company) costs businesses too. So actually maybe they’re passing on the cost of this rather than the transaction fees.
I’ve almost never seen irl stores charge more for paying by card, definitely not anything that wasn’t a small family business. The only place I see it is sometimes on webshops
It costs for the business, but handling cash costs time so money as well…
I’ve almost never seen irl stores charge more for paying by card
It’s a violation of visa/mastercard’s TOS, but also smaller stores get much higher transaction fees so they have further incentive to do so.
And Monero is digital cash
Cash is dead deserped from its place by alternative means far before we invented crypto
And those alternatives would be what, exactly?
Checks and credit The US hasn’t been backed by hard currency since the mid-60s. Once we moved off the gold standard, it all became Fiat based on exchange rates
So you don’t actually understand what the phrase “cash is king” really means.
A paper check is not cash. A credit score is not cash. Physical backed up currency in your hand is cash. And I don’t think you can get cash anymore. Only Fiat
And guess what cash doesn’t need to actually work, unlike credit, checks and crypto.
An economy?
paper checks are cash
No
If by mid-60s you mean 1971…?
I seem to have gotten the beginning of the process and the final cutoff date. Confused. That would be the cutoff date, not when they started to restrict the ability to convert
Credit card companies should be nonprofits under democratic control.
Sure, lets replace a regulated scam with an unregulated scam, that will solve things /s
Bitcoin bros are acting like little pushed around victims now?
Crypto is to peacocking men what MLMs is to american housemoms.
what
Crypto grifters trying to capitalize on the payment processor censorship drama (by portraying it as pushing people towards crypto)
Which is funny because many crypto people don’t spend it like currency because to them it is another asset they hope rises in value like stocks to get rich like the early bitcoin holders. And it’s why many if they spend it go and rebuy the same amount to not get spenders remorse in the future spending what could have been a house on a video game.
Now I know the decentralized value of crypto and the tech is cool. Just more sick of the overall greedy culture around it of people wanting to get rich quick off it, but masquerading around as though they actually care about the tech or are anti-capitalist. When it really is just about trying to get rich.
Steam and itch have had to remove porn games because Mastercard and Visa don’t like them
Not even that. It was because a disingenuous psychopath raised a big stink to the payment processors that Steam and itch rely on. As long as they want to process payments they unfortunately need the companies and have to appease them. The best thing we could do is raise a bigger opposite stink.
I think the best thing we can do is create long-term alternatives. But I do think that the most reasonable, effective, productive thing we can do is to just collectively harass the credit card companies harder than some outspoken religious nuts do to prevent them from caving to censorship demands.
Yeah I don’t understand the meme
Crypto is still a scam.
And specifically bad for this.
Only way out is communism. Pick yoir flavor.
What…
The only way out of crypto is full blow communism? Those are the two options?
Crypto has all the same vices as government and corporate currencies, just arranged a little differently. It’s not the revolution.
You can do various flavors of anarchism or centralism or the weird shit in between, but the only way for someone to not be able to say what you can spend your money on is to abolish money or get rid of all the people who could tell you what to do.
Bitcoin is not crypto
it’s literally called a “cryptocurrency”.
Yes but they are still very different things.
only if you change the definition of “crypto”.
Many would argue that there needs some distinction between them. The ongoing joke is “Shitcoin” as many have abandoned the benefits of bitcoin.
Wtf are you talking about??? Bitcoin is THE cryptocurrency.
The insane thing about Bitcoin’s continued popularity is that out of all the thousands of cryptocurrencies out there, it’s easily the worst in every regard.
I’m not going to name names for fear of being called a shill, but if you want a cryptocurrency for just buying stuff there’s a ton that are more stable, faster, don’t cost a fortune to process, and don’t destroy the planet.
